The Mystery Behind the Dam
by Romulox
Summary: Strange things are happening at Oblesk Dam, and Oblesk Dam guard Captain Snow decides to set out and uncover the mystery himself.


The day began with snow.

They all began with snow. In Siberia, snow was always there, greeting the few people that were crazy enough to live there. In the mornings, it was always among the coldest at times, often having temperatures that were in the negative numbers.

Captain Snow slowly rose from his cot. He put his bare feet onto the ground, preparing to face a new day, but suddenly took them off. The ground was unusually cold, even for the often-harsh interior temperatures of the Oblask Dam. Capt. Snow turned over on his cot, and then grabbed a pair of thermal socks that had been laid on the trunk before him. He began to get dressed.

After he had put on his layers of clothing, strapped his pistol into its holster, forced on his combat boots, and slid his pale, white ski mask onto his face, Snow reached for his earpiece, which had been on top of his trunk during the night. Snow bitterly remembered that he needed to get it fixed; the cold often made the earpiece malfunction.

As he left the barracks, Snow began to hear a crackling noise and some scattered words coming from his earpiece. He knew this was a message from one of his superiors, and rushed to the elevators, so he could leave the Dam to get better reception and hear the message. Snow pushed the button on the elevator wall, waiting for the small, familiar elevator box to appear, but after waiting for quite a long time, realized that it wasn't coming. At first, he suspected that it was a simple malfunction, perhaps something of a problem with the cable or pulley system. Then, Snow realized it was something more. He looked up on the ceiling at the small, dome shaped lights, giving off no comfortable light, and realized something.

The power was out.

At first, this did not bother Capt. Snow. He simply grumbled, "Shoot… I guess I'll have to take the stairs."

After a tiring climb down numerous flights of stairs, Snow reached the bottom of the Dam, and then tapped his earpiece, turning it on. Between some low buzzing and static, Snow heard a beeping noise, followed by a voice. He recognized it as belonging to the newly assigned major, Major Night.

"Snow," Night said in his low, calm voice, "There have been some words of a possible security breach outside of the Dam. I want you to be in charge of all the security forces and secure the perimeter. Oh, and call up Nikolai and Sgt. Shivers. Tell them to come down to the main security station. I want them to secure that room."

"Yes sir," Snow replied automatically, and then ended communications with Night and tuned into Nikolai's frequency.

Meanwhile…

Nikolai, flashlight in hand, slowly crept through the dark mining site at the end of the Dam. He slowly crept with long strides, shining his flashlight all around him. Suddenly, something landed on his shoulder.

A hand.

Nikolai spun around, only to see one of his fellow soldiers, a small man named Sgt. Shivers.

"What was that for?" Nikolai said to Shivers, irritably. "You scared the heck out of me."

Shivers looked at Nikolai sheepishly, but then turned his facial expression to a look of worry and replied to Nikolai. "You're not supposed to be down here, man… we could get in serious trouble. Besides, this place is kind of creepy."

Nikolai snickered. "Don't be such a baby, Shivers," Nikolai said. "Something strange is going down here, and I want to figure out what it is." Suddenly Nikolai's flashlight went out. Nikolai began banging the light against his palm, watching it flicker on and off, hoping he could get it to work.

Behind him, Shivers began to whimper, and tap Nikolai's shoulder furiously.

"Nikolai… Nikolai… look…"

Nikolai groaned at the light, ignoring Shivers. "Stupid flashlight…" he said in between hits. "Work… work… oh, there we go." The light went on and then he aimed it upwards….

Right into the face of the most terrifying creature that they had ever seen.

The creature was gigantic, measuring over seven feet tall, with large, strong looking limbs and torn clothing. However, what was most frightening was its distorted facial features and large, pointy teeth.

Nikolai and Shivers began screaming in fear, too petrified to run. The creature too let out a low growl, and then lifting his arms, dropped them onto Nikolai and Shivers, knocking them to the floor, dead.

Outside, Capt. Snow tapped his earpiece furiously.

"Must be malfunctioning again," Snow said to himself. Indeed, that did seem to be the case. All that he heard from Nikolai's channel was static. Snow then tried to change the channel, hoping he could contact Sgt. Shivers, who may know where Nikolai was. There was the same problem with Shiver's channel, too.

"Strange," Snow muttered to himself.

Snow shook his head, and was about to change channels to alert Major Night of the two soldiers' absence when suddenly he heard a "click". He immediately ran down from his post in the watchtower to see what the noise was.

As Snow ran down towards the control station, which controlled all camera activities outside of the Dam, he noticed a fellow officer kneeling next to a building, looking down. Snow rushed over there and looked to see what had happened. What Snow saw frightened him deeply and left a low, sinking feeling of sickness in his stomach.

It was a body.

There was a small trickle of blood leaking from the dead soldier's head, where he had been shot, and it was blatant that the soldier had died instantly, and not by mistake.

"Did you see what happened?" Snow said quietly to the officer standing next to him.

"No," She replied. "He was just patrolling and then… Oh snap!" She grabbed Snow's arm and then rushed away from the body, hiding behind a building.

"What is it?" Snow said, obviously curious at why the officer, whom he realized was called Lt. Frost dragged him away.

"Quiet," Frost ordered. "That man was sniped. This obviously means that someone's out to kill us. And, I'm pretty sure that's he looking to enter the Dam." Her voice quivered as she spoke.

Snow then remembered the orders that Night had given him earlier.

"There have been some words of a possible security breach outside of the Dam…"

The words Night had said echoed in Snow's mind for a while. Snow then turned to Frost.

"We have to neutralize this threat before it enters the Dam. We can't let it get access to any of our secret work. Let's split up. I'll grab a sniper rifle from the armory over there and then I'll see if I can pick the assailant off from afar. You stand by the other ammunition storage building and see if you can offer any assistance in case I can't get the enemy or fall." Snow had never spoken with such authority before. Normally, he didn't face such a situation like this before. He was terrified.

Snow, hunched over, ran to the armory, opened the door, and grabbed a sniper rifle from the shelves. He then charged to the watchtower, and aimed down at the tunnel where he believed the assailant was. Suddenly, Snow heard a scream, and quickly glanced to his left, where he noticed that Lt. Frost had been killed, a victim of a fatal gunshot.

Snow let out a deep breath, and then, ducking, looked towards the tunnel, and noticed a woman with piercing dark eyes wiry black hair, and tan artic clothes emerge, pistol in hand. Snow zoomed in on the woman, preparing to pick her off when yet another person, this time a man, emerged. He was wearing a heavy light blue jacket, and a strange cap on his head. On his face was a great, grey mustache, and Snow recognized his face. It was Gregor Lenko, a famous assassin. It was at this moment that Snow realized that he couldn't face both of these assailants alone. Dropping his rifle, Snow raced down from the watchtower, into the Dam.

Snow furiously tapped his earpiece, desperately trying to contact the Dam's defenses and attempt to get backup. However, all Snow could hear was static. His earpiece wasn't working again.

"No… come on… work… please…" Snow irritably groaned at the failure of his earpiece. "I guess I'll have to alert the base myself… manually," Snow breathed. He grabbed his pistol, just to make sure it was in its holster, and then began the long trek up the stairs to the main center.

Snow, panting, ran to Night's office. He slammed open the door, and went straight up to Night, who casually glanced at the weathered Captain Snow.

"What do you want?" Night said to Snow impatiently, not even looking up at him.

"There's… there's been a security breach back in the tunnel. I tried to stop it… but all the guards were killed. I need backup," Snow gasped.

"Hmmm… that is a problem," Night said, a trace of sarcasm in his voice. "I've got some important work to do, so I can't lead any forces down. Therefore, I want you to take control of my Special Forces. Deploy them and tell them to kill anyone that comes in the Dam. We'll lock this whole place down in a matter of minutes."

Snow scratched the back of his head, and then walked over towards the door, preparing to leave. He then remembered something, and turned around to say it to Night.

"Sir… in case you haven't noticed… the power's gone. We can't activate anything except for some trivial things like those camera-operated miniguns outside of the control room. Do you want me to restore pow-"

"No!" Night exclaimed, now looking towards Snow, his eyes dark and piercing into Snow's pale blue eyes. "Do not activate the power. I don't want any of them getting out."

Snow sighed, and then saluted Night. "Yes sir." He turned and left the office.

"Strange," Snow said to himself as he raced down to the control room to a deploy Special Forces. "Why doesn't Captain - I mean Major Night want to restore power? Who doesn't he want to get out?" Snow shook his head to himself. Something was going on, and he wanted to know.

Snow finally reached the control room, and there he called upon the Special Forces. Snow explained to them the security breach, and told them to watch for his command and shoot anything that wasn't authorized. Silently, like sheep, they listened, and obeyed Snow's command.

"Sir… just one question," A soldier said to Snow at the end of the briefing. "Will you be commanding us? Should we wait for your word to attack first?"

Snow thought for a moment. "No. I have my own business to attend." With those words, he deployed the troops and left down the hallway of the Dam, towards the mining site.

It didn't take long for Snow to realize that something was seriously wrong. The first thing Snow noticed was the dead bodies of Nikolai and Sgt. Shivers, laying on the floor, next to a still operating flashlight. Snow let out a gasp, but it wasn't as loud as the one he made when he noticed the large capsule, hoisted by a crane, planted next to the bodies.

The crane had a large case inside, and in the case was a creature like none that Snow had ever seen before. It was deathly white, with no eyes, and a mouth full of large, sharp teeth. Its arms were large claws, and it looked truly frightening. Snow took a moment to try and comprehend what was going on there, when suddenly, the lights turned on.

"The power… the power is online!" Snow said to himself. "The attackers must have put it online…" Snow raced to one of the storage rooms close to the mines and grabbed a 12-gauge shotgun. He raced to the control room, prepared to finish off the assassins, once and for all.

What Snow saw there was a horrifying and strange sight. His Special Forces were still there, but only a few remained. They were not fighting off the assassins, either; rather, they were combating strange looking mutants, and soldiers that looked as if they had died before. Zombies.

Snow grabbed his shotgun off his back and began fighting the zombies and mutants, alongside the others. He realized if he removed the heads, they would die instantly, and so Snow began firing his shotgun at the heads.

As he was firing, Snow noticed the woman that was with Gregor Lenko cornered by a pack of mutants. In a split second, Snow picked up his gun and blew off the heads of the mutants that were about to kill the girl. She looked towards Snow with a curious look on her face, a look that simply asked "Why?".

Snow's throat was dry, and he took a while to speak. "Something strange is going down here… and I want to find out what's going on…" Snow shook his head. "What am I fighting for?"

The girl looked at Snow strangely, and then ran towards the elevator, leaving Snow to terminate the last of the mutants. All of his Special Force operatives had since died.

After a long and grueling fight, Snow finally had the chance to go in an elevator and try and reach the top of the Dam. While in the elevator, he thought of all the strange events he had seen. Snow recollected all of the mysteries and answers that had come to him, and then wondered why Captain Night had been promoted to a Major so quickly. Obviously, this thought had been the right thing to think, as as soon as Snow thought of it, he began to piece some things together.

"The lockdown… the quarantine… the mutants… the dead soldiers in the mining area, by the strange biological contents…" Snow came to a conclusion. "Damn… those scientists uncovered something strange… something unnatural… and we came, not to dispose of it, but to develop biological weapons, like those mutants. And Night… he shows no leadership skills… but the promotion… he must have been in charge of one of the operations. They were using me all along, and I had no idea I was just a pawn!"

Snow's conclusion came easily, and now that he had figured out some of the Dam's secrets, he had time to focus on the current challenges.

Every time the elevator came to a new floor, the door would open and in would come bands of zombies and mutants, let loose by the operation of the power. Snow could easily kill them with skill, but his main problem was that all the conflict between his gun and the enemies would destroy the elevator, sending him plummeting to his death. Therefore, as a solution, Snow decided to fend himself off with a piece of sharp pipe he had found in the elevator. With this, he could protect the elevator. However, combat was more difficult. The creatures harmed him numerous times, hurting him badly, but Snow knew he had to keep going on. He had to uncover the truth.

Suddenly, the elevator came to final halt, and Snow reached the top of Oblesk Dam. He watched curiously as Gregor, using a mounted machine gun, shot down a helicopter. Gregor strafed about, running from gun to gun, until they were all out of ammo. He then proceeded to swing his Soviet S47 off his back, and fired a few final rounds at the plane. These meager bullets finally damaged the tough combat copter, which spiraled down to the nearly frozen lake in a fiery explosion.

Snow then watched in awe as surviving Special Forces operatives, whom had escaped the mutants and were now chasing after Gregor and the girl appeared. The girl with Gregor, holding a green crystal in one hand, fought them off deftly. She constantly fired her pistol, hitting direct shots on the guards, all the while being told by Gregor things like "Just keep them back, Ilsa!" or "It won't be long now… just keep fighting. I'm doing my best to hold off things here, too!". The girl, whom Snow now realized was named Ilsa, was a crack shot, and her amazing aim was only stopped when she had to occasionally jam another pack of ammunition into the bottom of the gun.

As soon as the helicopter went down with the last guard, a large, silvery blue portal opened up atop the Dam, and Gregor quickly jumped through it. Ilsa also was about to jump through it when she turned towards Snow.

"So," She said. "Did you find the answer to your questions?"

Snow thought for a minute and then replied to the Ilsa's question.

"Maybe… but can a question be an answer?"


End file.
